'Last Nite' revels in 2000s at Elbo Room

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DJ Jamie "Jams" Guzzie, above, and Emdee head up a new monthly party called "Last Nite," playing music from the turn of the 21st century.

A sign of the relentless march of time, promoters behind San Francisco's popular 1990s indie-music night "Debaser" are tackling the 2000s with a new party called "Last Nite."

Named for a song by The Strokes, the 4-month-old "Last Nite" draws fans of bands such as Daft Punk, Arcade Fire, Interpol and LCD Soundsystem to the Elbo Room every second Friday of the month.

A mix of nostalgia from older fans and reverence from younger ones fuels the party upstairs at the Mission district hot spot, which is DJ'd by Jamie "Jams" Guzzi and Emdee.

You're not likely to hear any Creed at this 2000s night, says Guzzi, 36, who lives in the Mission district.

"It's definitely really a party and dancey vibe," Guzzi says. "It's really kind of synth-poppy for the most part. We haven't gone too far in any direction. It's cool stuff."

Guzzi moved to San Francisco 12 years ago to work for anti-war and human-rights groups, and he picked up DJing almost immediately.

"It's great. Why would anyone live anywhere else? I have a good apartment with fair rent. We're trying to find ways to make the apartment space go further. I just spent all day cleaning out the hallway closet to turn it into a guest room."

The turn of the century was an interesting time to be working as a DJ and human-rights community organizer, he says. On one hand, the Internet was shattering the boundaries between genres and fragmenting music listenership.

"It was the crossover from CDs to MP3s. People had access to a lot of stuff. Everything before 2005 is too late for MTV," he says. "Not even to speak of the whole anti-war angle. I wish we weren't doing a throwback to global war. That definitely colored the music."

The Strokes' debut album is missing a song about New York City police. It got pulled after the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

"Something like Interpol is a quintessential dark one that encapsulates the mood happening after 2001. So that's in there, as is Radiohead. We all sort of look back at where we were and what it means to us now. It's also just fun to hear something you haven't heard in a while. As much as it feels like it's something you heard the other day, eight years ago is a lifetime for a lot of people."